just the tip

I bent the tip of my Petzl M10 front-points dry-tooling like an idiot. The bend is slight, but enough that it would be a pain in the ass and not safe to lead ice with.

Just wondering, has anyone had any experience with forged front-points bending, and have you bent them back with a vice-grip? My extremely limited knowledge and experience of metallurgy (bending paper-clips back and forth) tells me that this will weaken the front point. The question is: how much are the forged front points of the m10 designed to withstand some bending?

Anyone care to give some insight? I plan on buying a new set of front-points when I get the moolah(I have them set up in mono, but my old points are dreadfully dull...) but I would like to salvage these if possible.

Why not just take out a file and sharpen your old points?

As for the bending, paper clips are aluminum, which is very prone to stress fractures. Steel is more malleable and doesn't break as easily after being bent and bent back. Whether or not it's safe enough to rely on, I don't know. I'll defer to someone who has tried it.

Crag Dweller wrote:As for the bending, paper clips are aluminum, which is very prone to stress fractures.

I have a pair of M10s and I love them. Didn't they come with two front points per crampon? Then you probably customized the set up depending on what you wanted right? I'm guessing you have two front points laying around because you went mono point. If I was that worried about it I would just change them out. If I didn't have the spares laying around I would just order new ones.

But, if it were me and I didn't have any spares laying around, I would just bend it back. Then go up to some ice and kick the shit out of it and see what happens.

EDIT-Oh, I just read your whole post. Sorry. Yeah, bend em back and kick some ice. If it seems cool, tie in.

I can't say for sure but I would absolutely recommend heating the metal with a heat gun or blow torch before bending it back. Same goes for ski poles... so it should work, right?

Thanks for the responses guys...I do have another set of front points "kicking around," but the one I bent is almost brand new and I really wanted to salvage it.

Good point with the heat recommendation...worth some research. Hopefully Dane (Cold Thistle) will see this and have a recommendation, I know he is very knowledgeable when it comes to metallurgy.

Until then, I'll probably swap the old points out and sharpen them up to be safe.

I'm a structural engineer. Bending once is kinda bad. You have yielded and probably work-hardened the aluminum. Trying to bend them back is much worse and will definitely make the metal brittle/snap. Grind away. Call them your mixed crampons if you must and get a proper ice pair. I have a specific set of Ice Park tools to beat on and a separate backcountry ice set. I doubt you can accurately use a heat gun or torch to anneal the aluminum.
Suerte or muerte-

M10 front points are forged chromoly.

I just popped the old points back on (I could have just replaced the one, but I can't stand being asymmetrical when I know I can help it.....)

No more dry-tooling for me!